Twenty Eight
by The Undying Mongoose
Summary: Twenty-eight years is a long time to wait.  Spoilers through episode 1x12.


Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon A Time.

Warnings: Spoilers up to and including episode 1x12, "Skin Deep."

twenty-eight

one

He opens his eyes to sunlight. Not the dappled green light of the deep forest or the shining white that came through his curtains, back when he had curtains and was inclined to open them. Certainly not the dirty torchlight that flickered through the prison bars. It's a bit grey, and not at all warm, glaring in through a half-closed shop door.

It is a shop, and he isn't certain how he knows it's a shop, because he's certainly never been in a shop like this before. He places his hand on a strange metal box with buttons, and he doesn't know where the memory of its name comes from, because Rumpelstiltskin should not know what a cash register is. Around him, on shelves and in cases and hanging from walls, is everything he's ever collected, and many things he's sure he never did. He knows the names of every soul from which he bought them, and he's never heard their names before.

The cut of his garments is strange, but he knows thread well enough to know fine cloth when he sees it. And that is his name above the door of the shop, a name he never had before, but his nonetheless. The alien memories tell him that the paper in his pocket is money, more money than most men earn with a month's labor. These things are his: a mind that knows things it should not, and a comfortable life.

She did it, the fool. Gods and devils, the witch did it.

two

He still doesn't trust mirrors, but you can't avoid them these days. So much glass, so commonplace. Behind the pawnbroker, behind the deal-maker, there is a poor weaver who would have sold his right arm for a glass window. Now, everywhere he steps, there is his reflection.

It's quite normal, and that is a strange thought. Skin fleshy and pink, teeth whiter than they ever were, eyes clear and dark. Weak, says the Dark One, hating it. How else would it be? asks Mr. Gold, who knows no other way. His self stands between the two, and can't say which side he agrees with.

three

She does not suspect that he knows, the more fool she. Whyever would he have made the bargain he did, had he not known his mind would slip the curse? But then, cunning was never her greatest asset. He smirks at her new surname, and she doesn't notice. He will be careful, of course. Even the dullest of foes can make a lucky guess, and he has chanced too much to grow arrogant now.

A newspaper from 1983 still sits in the back room. Not the Mirror, of course, which is no more reliable as a piece of journalism than it was when it hung on the Queen's wall, but one from out of town, obtained at no small expense. On page five, the story of an infant girl found on the side of the road.

Three things are true of magic: there is always a price. Curses can always be broken. And prophecies never lie.

All he has to do is wait.

eleven

He would rather have his prison. Time passes in a prison. Not so in Storybrooke, Maine.

Oh, a few things change. The clothes shift from one brand of garish to the next, and if you ask someone the date, you will get a different answer than you did when you asked two years ago. But the voices are the same, the faces never age, even the trees never grow. Ashley Boyd has been eight months pregnant for almost twelve years. Deals that only half of him remembers making will never come due.

Rumpelstiltskin has suffered years, while Mr. Gold lives in a moment that never ages. In the dead of night, when no one can hear, he sits on his very comfortable bed and screams until his too-human throat is raw.

sixteen

He can see it in her eyes, it's driving her as mad as it's driving him. This is not her idea of conquest. She has her vengeance and her victory, but curses know no allegiance. No one has a happy ending here. Not even her.

She will come to him, when she can bear it no longer. She will ask, and he will make her beg. She will beg, and he will tell her to wait. She will wait, and he will deliver her ruin. And she will thank him.

Soon.

Gods and devils, let it be soon.

eighteen

He has not held an infant since—he has not held an infant for a very long time. He thanks his contact in the gracious way that Mr. Gold conducts business, and lifts the baby boy in his arms. It fusses, and he whispers a lullaby that never existed.

When she opens the door, she smiles. So does he, for quite different reasons. "What will you name him?" he asks, and she freezes.

Has he grown so careless, in eighteen years of boredom, to bring up the topic of names? Has she remembered, belatedly, that he was not so easily brought down? But she answers, after a moment's pause, and he relaxes. It is a good name, and he adds it to the litany he has learned over the years. One more name, one more step closer. Where the child comes, the mother will follow.

twenty-four

Henry grows. Children are supposed to grow, says the voice of Mr. Gold, ever stronger. There's nothing unusual there.

But he will not listen to Mr. Gold. The curse is forever at the edges of his memory, threatening to take away everything that is his, and he will not give it an inch. Henry grows, and he is the only one to do so. Rumpelstiltskin watches the boy running down the street, with _her _reluctantly in tow, and he can see the years quicken. It will take time, of course. Magic is never early any more than it is late.

He is six now. A good age, six, an age for asking too many questions and getting covered in mud and being so very far away from sorrow. He does not look anything like Bae, not more than any other brown-haired little boy would, but the sight of him still stirs thoughts he would rather forget.

Every day, he grows, and the pawnbroker watches.

twenty-eight

Mr. Gold is quiet. The clock outside counts the passing minutes (passing at last!), and each minute pushes the false memories further into the darkness. A weed has grown outside his shop, a weed that has never grown there before. He has not uprooted it yet; he's too gleeful to know it's there. Time is moving again. Events long foretold are coming to pass, and deals are coming due.

He watches through his front door as the sun sets.


End file.
